


Some Assistance

by thisiswhyishouldntwritefanfic



Category: Alias (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Missing Scene, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-03 19:45:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12754935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisiswhyishouldntwritefanfic/pseuds/thisiswhyishouldntwritefanfic
Summary: During Sydney's missing time, she seeks help from a forgotten source.





	Some Assistance

**Author's Note:**

> I always wanted to see more of this particular guest star. His story was very interesting, not just his kidnapping but also the dynamics of his marriage to a Russian agent and secret past as an NSA agent. They could have done so much more with him and didn't. 
> 
> I think it should be more than this, and my skills aren't what they ought to be, but I wrote the scene with Sydney and Neil. I liked that little moment, and it could almost fit in with the show this way, so I decided to share it anyway.

* * *

Sydney had the disc.

Trouble was, the CIA thought she was dead, and there was no way she could let the Covenant have what might be on it. She didn't know what to do. She thought of contacting Kendall again, but she didn't want to do it. He'd wanted her to stay in the Covenant, and she had, but that didn't mean that she wanted to turn everything over to him.

She was on her own right now.

No Marshall, no backup, just her.

She didn't have many options, but there was one person she knew of that might be able to help, and she didn't think anyone would expect her to go to him.

She had to try.

* * *

“This is unexpected.”

“I'm sure,” Sydney said, forcing a smile. “Can I come in?”

Neil nodded, stepping back to allow her inside. He knew he owed this woman and her associates his life and his family's, and he would always be in their debt. His own attempts to free himself had gone nowhere, and a part of him would never forgive himself for helping those people, even if he knew he'd do it again.

He still worried about what he'd given them, assembling the Rambaldi device. He didn't know what that had done to the world. They'd never told him, even if he had admitted his NSA connection. The agency still disavowed him, not that anyone acknowledged him these days.

“I wouldn't have come if it wasn't important.”

“I figured that when you breached witness protection,” Neil told her, and she gave him a bit of a smile. They both knew she shouldn't be here. He wasn't allowed near anything classified or anyone that knew him as Neil Caplan. “It was naïve, I suppose, thinking I—we—could go back to the lives we had before. I'm not supposed to have anything to do with math, can you believe that?”

“It sounds ridiculous,” she told him. “A mind like yours shouldn't go to waste.”

He lifted up the crossword in his hand. He'd done the sudoku already. “I try to keep busy.”

“I don't know why they couldn't find a better way,” she admitted. “They gave Elsa defector status—”

“My mind is apparently a traceable thing,” he said, shaking his head again at the irony of it. “We'd be in danger from Elsa's handlers and the SVR. I know too much about Rambaldi. I can break military grade encryption. Their list of why I can't do what I used to do gets longer every time I get near the subject.”

“And they're still watching you.”

He nodded. He figured it might be years before the surveillance ended. No one trusted Elsa, and he was still considered a risk, NSA or not. “Which is why you shouldn't be here.”

“Officially, I'm not.”

He should have expected that answer. “What do you need?”

“Help with this,” she said, holding up a disc. “No one can know about it.”

“Assuming they don't already,” he said. She gave him another smile, but he shook his head. “They gave me a long list of why I can't do any of this and the consequences if I did. I owe you everything, but I need more than a smile.”

“I know. Trust me when I say I've taken every possible precaution to keep them from knowing I came to you. I wouldn't have if I had any other choice, but I don't.”

He nodded.

“So you'll help?”

He took the disc from her, forcing a smile. “At least I won't be bored.”

* * *

“Your hair.”

Sydney grimaced. She'd made sure to change her look from that of Julia Thorne when she first went to see him, but she'd forgotten to do it on her return, rushed as she was. She needed to get back before the Covenant noticed her absence.

“Part of my cover. At least it's not pink, right?”

Neil looked her over. “I think I would have liked to see that.”

She smiled back. “Were you able to access the disc?”

He nodded. “I've dealt with worse encryption.”

“When you were held by Sloane and Irina Derevko,” Sydney said, wondering if Elsa had ever told Neil that woman was her mother. She knew from Neil's debriefing that he'd almost strangled Irina. She didn't know where that left them. “I'm sorry about that.”

“I'm fine. That's... it's the past. Except when it rains,” Neil told her, touching his leg. “Um... can I ask you something?”

“What?”

“What is it about Rambaldi? Why do people get so obsessed with this thing?”

She studied him. “You don't see it? You were the one that put together his device. You saw it near completion. It didn't do anything for you?”

“Sloane said I'd be interested because I was a scientist. I'd want to understand it,” Neil said. “He sounded so... sure of it that I didn't want him to be right. I don't know if I was just stubborn or if I couldn't accept it. Yes, I'm a scientist, but this wasn't science. It was science fiction. None of it made sense. It couldn't be real. And I was kidnapped, my family was threatened... it all seemed like some kind of nightmare.”

Sydney wished it wasn't. She was The Chosen One, supposedly, and she hated it. “This disc deals with Rambaldi.”

“Yes. So, please, take it and go. I don't mind helping, I really don't, but I don't want anything else to do with Rambaldi.”

She nodded, taking the disc from him. “Thank you.”

“Not a problem.”

She gave him a smile, promising herself that if she ever got back to the CIA, she'd make sure that they changed things here. Neil was too valuable a resource to be wasted, and he could be helping them like Marshall did or at least working like he used to before his kidnapping.

“I might need your help again.”

“You know where I am.”


End file.
